I, Ninja
by AnonBryd
Summary: A teenager from the 21st century wakes up to strangely familiar world, in the body of a child. No Slash, might be mature content/heavily descriptive violence in the future, but rated T for now.
1. Chapter 1 - Where am I?

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 1 - Where am I?

2015/03/19

Disclaimer: I do not own anything written here, except myself and my idea. I am writing purely for my own pleasure.

Consciousness slowly drifted back to me, I heard the buzzing and creaking of bugs, smelt the musty scent of moldy trees and long-damp soil, felt the soft, wet grass beneath my back, rubbing slightly against my neck and I wondered, where am I?

I slowly opened my eyes, and was greeted by the underside of tree tops. I looked around for a second before I realised: "Wait a second! WHO am I?" I stopped, frozen in a near panic, before memories unveiled themselves: My name is Thomas. Thomas... Something.

I am seventeen years old, grew up with a loving mother and father, as well as a very protective older brother. And I couldn't remember my own surname, it seemed. I took a deep breath. Okay. No use panicking.  
I was raised as a very intelligent child, and could read when I was three years old. I have a reasonably strong moral code, and I am a slightly religious person. I prefer books to people and have very few friends. I have never been seriously bullied, and retaliated successfully against those who tried. Not many did.

I was walking home from school one day and crossed a very quiet road over the zebra crossing. I never had time to react to the roaring of the truck as it powered down the road, I only heard a brief burst of noise and saw a flash of light before…

Nothing.

A gap in my memory, not unlike that of when you wake up from sleep, knowing time has passed but not having experienced the passing of time. The gap seemed small, almost minuscule, but at the same time it was larger, larger than time itself. Something important had happened in that gap, but I was not sure what.

Focusing on that gap, I wondered where else I could find gaps, and I found them in strange places. I would be looking for something to read, but could not remember what it was that I read, or I would be discussing popular anime and manga with my two friends, and the topic of half the conversation would be blank…

I re-opened my eyes, not even aware that I had closed them in the first place, sat up, and once again took stock of my surroundings. Trees as far as I could see ahead of me, blocking out most of the sun, grass and moss underneath me, some birds fluttering fluttering in between the branches, and a path a short distance to my left.

Deciding that it would be best to investigate the path first, I stood up, and was shocked by my apparent miniaturisation! I seemed to have lost just under a third of my height!  
Deciding that an immediate status check took priority, I investigated my body.

My current body looked to be about seven or eight years old, and had a lot less baby fat than normal children should have. Taking off my jacket, which was a rather hideous orange, and my T-Shirt, which sported a like-wise orange flame-like emblem on a white back ground, I looked at my slightly underweight torso.

My ribs were showing slightly, and I did not have much in the line of muscle tone, but at least my stomach seemed to have a bit of fat, although not as much as normal seven or eight year olds would have.

Moving on, I reached up and grabbed a bit of my hair, that was slightly long, although not as long as my hair originally was at that age, and a striking yellow! It was not a very bright blonde, as mine was at that age, before it darkened, but instead it was a bright yellow.  
I sat down down, putting my shirt back on as I did but leaving my jacket on the ground, and started to think. If this wasn't my de-aged body, as I had started to believe, and instead someone else's body, as the hair and nutrition showed, then the question became: Who's body was it?

As I closed my eyes, deep in thought about the ownership of this body, I started receiving images, vague impressions of a life I had never lived, a life of loneliness, misery and slight fear, I heard shouts of "Demon!", and parents telling their children to stop playing.  
I re-lived a life that was not mine, and as I came to for the second time that day, I heard a voice say "The name's Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto. You better remember that when I become Hokage, Dattebayo!"

I opened my eyes again with a wry grin as well as a derisive snort, and remarked to myself, "Well, at least I know whose body this is."

Apparently the previous owner of this body, one Uzumaki (Family name, I reminded myself, they seem to come first here, like they do in Japan) Naruto, was being hated and discriminated against for something I do not even know about. He ate ramen, which I had heard about, but never had the opportunity to eat before, simply because it was nice, cheap, and no-one told him that it was unhealthy, and eventually developed an obsession about it.

He was also nine years old. Viciously underdeveloped for such an age, he was at least fifteen centimetres shorter than the global average, something that I hoped to rectify in the upcoming years.

At a young age he developed a mask in order to hide his true sadness and misery, and the mask eventually overtook his true self, his dumb and excessively loud persona overtaking and supplanting his original personality, which became so suppressed that he developed a split personality whose memories I also received, memories of anger and hatred, wishing to burn the village to the ground were just as prevalent as those of faked laughter and plastic smiles, wanting to protect the village to his dying breath.

"Okay, Let's try this again, Thomas. Naruto. I suppose I am going to have to go by that now, won't I?" I mused, before taking a deep breath, and settled myself, before getting up, picking up my jacket as I did, and walked towards the path.

"Naruto," I rolled it around in my mouth as I said it a second time. "Sounds familiar..."


	2. Chapter 2 - How did I get here?

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 2: How did I get here?

2015/03/20

The walk over towards the paths was a short one, maybe fifty meters at most, but it gave me some time to clear my mind. I had often proclaimed my love for the way my mother raised me, in that I knew it was not how a normal child acted – I was a lot more adaptive than other children, and could fit myself into almost any situation if needs be. So, as I was walking I quickly summarized my current situation.

First possibility: I was in a coma and having an extremely vivid dream/hallucination. This might be possible, and if it is then I may as well just try to make the best of my situation and have fun.

Second possibility: I was dead and just woke up in a new body, in a possibly new world, and the previous owner of this body was Naruto Uzumaki, who had been ignored and neglected from his earliest memories, except by three people: the owner of the ramen stand that Naruto frequented, Ichiraku Teuchi, and his daughter, Ayame, as well as the supposed leader of this village – Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen.

'That is a rather strange name,' I thought to myself, 'But I suppose 3rd Fire Shadow does have a fitting flair, for a ninja, that is.'

That was another thing that got me about where I was, and also what solidified the two possibilities I had thought of in my mind: in this world there were ninjas, who apparently had superpowers. Naruto was even going to an academy to train said Ninjas! And he was only nine years old!

I quickly snapped myself out of my thoughts, reminding myself to think about this later, when I am not in the middle of a forest, and finished the final few steps onto the path.

It was a rather old path, perhaps it may have been a well frequented road at some point, well-trodden cobblestones and newer weeds being equally prevalent at this point in time, and off to the right was just a rather long path further into the forest, or perhaps out of it, seeing as I was not yet sure of which was was which.

The left hand side, however, was what caught my attention.

Standing perhaps seventy five meters off to my left, at the end of the path, was a ruin. Supported on all sides by by pillars keeping it off the ground, although some of them had collapsed by now, holes in the roof where some planks had rotted away, and, most noticeably to me, the Uzumaki Spiral on the front of it. Naruto used to search for hours on end, looking for family- the only connection that he had that he could possibly follow up on was his surname, and the Spiral that went with it.

Seeing the ruin on the other hand, also brought back a few more memories, again from Naruto, about approaching the derelict a the previous evening, and with the sun already setting once again I/he must have been unconscious for over half a day.

Upon receiving these memories made me hope that whatever was inside could clear up what happened here, and possibly give me some answers, so I cautiously approached the building. I made a note of every sound in the forest, hoping that I would not hear the howling of wolves, or the hissing of a snake – I was in a forest after all, and stepped closer.

As I approached the ruin it became obvious to me that it was not actually a ruin as such, although it could be described as one now, but it had only been lying unattended for a few years, ten, at most, seeing as the wood had not yet completely rotted away, and most of the structure was still intact, if a bit weathered and broken.

The building was the only thing that stood out in the forest, so there was not much to be remarked upon about the short distance to the building itself, I never felt as if there were eyes upon my back as some people describe walking in a forest is like, and after a few seconds I was at the steps.

The building itself was maybe twenty or thirty meters wide, and about fifteen meters high. The path that I was walking on lead directly up to the steps, with two pillars supporting an overhang above those steps. As I mentioned before, the intriguing part of said overhang was the Uzumaki Spiral, leading me to believe that this building was previously owned by the Uzumaki.

Or it could just be a coincidence.

Doubtful. There is no such thing as coincidence. Murphy's Law ensures that unremarked coincidences will come back to bite you in the ass.

Looking up at the Uzumaki Spiral on the overhang made me feel a very striking de'ja vu – and closing my eyes for a second had confirmed that Naruto had been there the night before, in the very same position as I was, although with a much more amazed stare, and he had wondered whether this place would hold the answers to his questions: Who am I, truly? Where is my family?

I couldn't say that he found them, just yet.

There were seven steps in total, not something to be remarked on, really, although there was a chunk of the last four steps missing, on the right hand end of the steps, and I quickly ascended them on the left hand side. The doors were hanging off their hinges, so it took a slight amount of effort to get past them without them falling off completely, but this small body helped with that, although it led me to think that I had kept Naruto's reflexes in this body, seeing as I got used to it so quickly.

As I moved passed the door, and into the building itself, I realized that it was not just any building, it was a Shrine! The inside back wall of the building was covered in demonic masks, one of which was lying on the floor, with what looked like a smear of blood covering it.

With my sense of de'ja vu deepening by the second I walked up do it and picked it up, immediately dropping it again as my vision flashed, and I witnessed Naruto walking up to the solitary mask that was not on the wall.

He picked it up, and as he touched it the mask seemed to animate itself and bit him! There was a flash of light, and that same indescribeable blankness that I had experience, before I woke up, in his body.

I picked myself up off the floor, only noticing now that I had fallen onto it, and wondered out loud, "The last moments of Uzumaki Naruto. Well, at least I know what happened to him now. But now the only question is: How?"

AN: I just want to say thanks to my first reviewer, Fae Lovette, and hopefully I will get more soon!

This is hopefully going to cover all of Canon, so I expect it to take a loooong while, and I hope I don't give up on it, seeing as it is my first fanfiction. Most of what happens here is what I expect my own reaction would be to waking up in this situation, as I am literally writing myself into Naruto.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time (which may or may not be later today, debating whether or not I get bored and start writing the next part.)


	3. Chapter 3 - Next Steps

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 3: Next steps

2015/03/20

I knew that the answer to my question would not be a very easy one, neither to obtain, or to understand, and as such I decided to plan my approach in this world, whether I was in a coma, or actually in a new world, it was best to "play for keeps" so to speak, and make the best of my situation. If I spent the rest of my life here I may as well make it a good one, right?

I decided that my first steps were going to have to be handling immediate problems for the night. Right then I had shelter, albeit not a very insulated one, but it was better than staying out in the forest, and the clothes on my back. That was it.

I set about exploring the Shrine, but there was not much to be seen there, except for the Mask Wall and bits of rubble lying here and there, although the mask wall had a curtain hanging above it, so I decided to take that down, seeing as it was in mysteriously good condition, although it was a bit ragged and torn at the bottom edges, it was still better than sleeping with nothing.

I cautiously approached the wall, and climbed the few steps leading up to the Masks, then I set my jacket on the floor next to the railing on the sides of the steps before climbing on to it, grabbing onto the curtain, and pulled.

It took a few jerks, but eventually the whole thing came tumbling down, just barely missing the masks, and I was left with a nice thick blanket to last me the night.

I got down from the railing, luckily having kept my balance, and gathered the curtain up off the floor, the thick and wide cloth overflowing in my arms, and hung it over the railing to beat it for a few seconds, seeing as it _was _a bit dusty after being unattended for so long. After I had beaten the dust out of it I left it on the railing and continued to look around.

There was a section of the floor in the corner on the other side of the room that was both clear and under an unbroken section of the roof, that I decided was going to be my resting place for the night, so I picked my jacket back up, walked over and cleaned the floor of a few years worth of dust.

Then I shook my jacket out, and hung it over the railing next to my makeshift blanket.

I then noticed that I was hungry. Ravenous really. It seemed that I had gone without food for over a day, which would explain it. I looked around for anything else that could be useful before deciding that it was a lost cause and walked back outside. I knew there wasn't much that I could eat or even find in the forest before the sun fully set, but I decided to try anyway, and to never stray more than twenty five meters from the shrine or the path.

Walking around the shrine I noticed that there was not much in the way of fruit-bearing plants on either the front or the side of the building, but as I approached the back I hit figurative gold.

There were a few fruit trees, mainly apples and pears, growing wild in the back! It made sense that they would have a garden behind a shrine and I quickly went about gathering a few apples and pears in the dying light before heading back into the shrine.

Once I was inside the shrine again I set the fruit down, tried to close the doors as tightly as possible without breaking them, and sat down for my meal, which was to consist of 3 apples and two pears, which I ate whole, cores and all.

They were rather nice, although they seemed a bit unripe, and I ate them quickly, lagging a bit on the last pear, by which time I was quite full, reminding myself that this body was only nine years old, and looked even younger.

After I had sated my hunger, and luckily I was not thirsty either, as that would have been a hassle to handle, I quickly collected my jacket, put it on, and laid the curtain down on the floor. It was a rather large curtain, mabye seven meters wide and long and quite thick, so I wouldn't need anything else to sleep under, before realizing that I didn't have a pillow and took my jacket off again. I bunched it up into a ball and set it on the one side of the curtain.

Looking around from where I was standing there was nothing else that needed to be addressed immediately, so I sat down and decided to take care of a few long term plans. The first thing that I needed to do was get fully acquainted with Naruto's memories. I was not sure where I was, who was important here (except for that Sandiame guy), and what I wanted to do for the next few years.

Those being my questions, and the memories hopefully leading to my answers, I decided to meditate. I had tried meditation a few times in my previous life (I decided to just refer to it as that for now, seeing as I had no better term for it), and although I never really achieved much with it, it did help to clear my head of irrational emotions, when I could not do it myself.

I generally just used to sit with crossed legs and my hands on my knees, although I tried sitting in lotus position before, but my legs were much too stiff and it hurt to do it for more than ten seconds, and I decided to at least try the lotus position in this body. Children's bodies are much more flexible than teenager's bodies after all.

Fortunately for me, either Naruto had an extremely flexible body or he had done this a few times before, my legs fit easily over each other and I could begin. Meditating in Lotus position is a lot easier to do than it is in with crossed legs, because it is easier to maintain a straight backed posture and you breathe slightly easier.

I closed my eyes and began to count, in sets of 4, breathe in, hold, breathe out, repeat.

Breathe in, hold, breathe out, repeat.

I lost track of time surprisingly quickly, and my mind took me on a journey.

I learnt of Ninjas, powerful asssassins and mercenaries, sometimes seen as heroes, wielding Chakra and blades to end their opponents.

I learnt of the Five Great Ninja Villages, Kumogakure, Iwagakure, Kirigakure, Sunagakure, and Konohagakure, where Naruto lived, and was mistreated.

I learnt that they spoke, read and wrote Japanese here, as well as dealt with Ryo as their main currency.

I learnt all that Naruto knew, and applied it to my current knowledge.

Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly considering what I knew of him, which at that moment was, admittedly, everything, Naruto didn't know very much about anything. Granted he was brilliant at pranks and I was not entirely sure how he even thought some of his plans up, many of which required tactical knowledge that I did not have, which just seemed to come instinctively to him.

The rest of his knowledge was unfortunately, abysmal.

He could barely read, his writing was atrocious, and his vocabulary was that of a six year old, which was rather insulting to me, seeing as I had had the vocabulary of a sixteen year old when _I_ was six.

He only knew of the names of the five ninja villages, and the only reason he he knew the name of the Hokage was because of how close the two were.

'There is something fishy there,' I thought to myself, 'The leader of a government does not just randomly take pity on an orphan and strike up a relationship with him. He must have known his parents, or have some other motive.' I had enjoyed reading Harry Potter, and fanfictions of it in the past and it always struck me how nearly everything that happened to Harry always seemed to have some link to Dumbledore.

I was getting some serious Dumbledore-'vibes' from the Sandiame. I would have to be very careful around him.

On another note, as I had noticed earlier, Naruto went to a Ninja school!

Although he did abysmally there as well, seeing as it was a mostly academic class for the first few years, there were so many potentially new things to do! Chakra seemed so much like a potential game-breaker, and the first thing I would have to do is access Naruto's (Mine now!) chakra. He had managed it in the past, although just barely and with absolutely no control.

I tried to clear my mind, and look for it, although I was not sure of what exactly I was supposed to look for, seeing as Naruto had managed his connections mostly by accident, but I tried. I spent the next few minutes or hours, I was not entirely sure, looking for it and by the time I thought I had finally reached a spark of, of _something, _my body reminded me that I was only nine years old now, and unlimited energy lasts a surprisingly short amount of time.

I opened my eyes, yawned, grabbed the edge of the curtain, rolled it around my body, and went to sleep the moment my head touched my makeshift pillow.


	4. Chapter 4 - To Konoha! Part 1

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 4 – To Konoha! Part 1

2015/03/21

'Waking up to the sound of birds and sunlight on your face is not unpleasant, no matter where you are.' I silently declared as I drifted back to the waking world. My dreams from the previous night were fading by the second, as dreams are wont to do, and by the time I opened my eyes all I remembered of them were flashes and loud noises.

The building looked a lot different in the light of day, bright sunlight streaming in from the holes in the roof made the room look rather pretty, albeit still very run down.

I started getting up, not one to lie in bed when I am no longer tired, and realized that today was the day that I would have to begin getting back to Konoha, and clear up what I had done here.

That being my goal as I got up I started setting up my priorities for the day: Get some breakfast in a few minutes as I was not yet hungry, put the curtain back in place, and do something about the masks, before heading out.

My first step was going to have to be the curtain and the masks. It wouldn't be very smart of me to just leave them around for some power seeking fool to mess around with them, or even worse, an oblivious fool, considering I did not even know what they truly did yet. And, if they were Uzumaki possessions as I suspected, then they rightfully belonged to me, well Naruto, but anyway.

I would decide my next steps after I completed my first, and thus I began.

I needed a place to hide the masks, and seeing as I did not have a place to actually put them where nobody would find them I decided to collect them in the curtain. I also had to be careful not to touch them, seeing as they had a strange reaction to me/Naruto, and would have to pick them up with the curtain.

I got up, picked up my jacket and shook it out vigorously, before debating whether or not to put it on. It was a rather warm morning, and would change into a mildly hot day later on, so I decided to just tie it around my waist. Then I dragged the curtain over to the floor in front of the steps leading up to the mask wall, took a corner of the blanket and tentatively picked up the mask that had bitten Naruto before my awakening.

Seeing as there was no visible reaction from the thankfully inert mask I quickly placed it on the curtain and folded a piece of fabric over it. After that it seemed to be a good idea to use my jacket to take the rest down off the wall so that I could put them on the curtain as well and fold it up.

I started at the bottom right, and I was much too short at the moment to reach the higher ones without assistance at the moment so the lower mask stands would have to act as footrests for when I took those off.

The first mask, and all of those following it, came off without any struggle and by the time I had reached the second row the curtain was getting slightly crowded. I got on the railing to take down the last row of masks, which all came off similarly easily, barring the third mask from the right, which seemed to tug at my abdomen. Not wanting anything else to happen to me, I quickly pulled it off the wall and put it in the curtain as well before finishing the rest.

Once I had put all of the masks in their new home for the foreseeable future, I folded the curtain up and looked around for a place to hide it.

A few of the floorboards along the left hand wall looked to be a bit loose, so I quickly pulled them up to see a gap between the bottom of the building and the actual floor about half a meter deep. I then dragged the mask bundle over and dropped it in, before covering the hole back up with their floorboards, and putting some rubble over it for good measure.

My first order of business now complete, I was feeling a bit hungry so I looked around to see if there was anything else that needed to be taken care of, which there wasn't, put my jacket back around my waist and walked out.

Something that stuck me as I walked outside in the early morning light was how clearly I could see everything. In my previous body I had needed to wear glasses, and this was even clearer than those! I could see every blade of grass in striking detail if I focused and it amazed me!

As I went back into the garden for a nice breakfast of 3 apples and 3 pears, knowing that I would need the energy for the upcoming day I admired the beauty of being able to see unaided and picked the fruit and ate them while enjoying the fresh morning air.

They tasted almost exactly the same as the ones I had had last night, so once I finished them I ate the cores as well and got ready to move out.

The forest around the shrine was very thick as I had noted the night before, although now that I had light I could see that it was more because of the overwhelming thickness of the trees themselves instead of the amount of trees. The smallest of them was at least two meters wide!

I slowly walked back around to the front of the shrine, just looking around with my newly realized eyesight and gazed down the path. It seemed like it went on for at least a few kilometers and I looked around for anything else that was attention-worthy, decided not, and began walking.


	5. Chapter 5 - To Konoha! Part 2

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 5 – To Konoha! - Part 2

2015/03/24

In the future I would look back on the walk from the shrine to Konoha as the true beginning of my life in the Elemental Nations. I would also look back and wonder why the walk was so peaceful, keeping in mind that bandits and chakra-mutated beasts are all to common in the forests surrounding Konoha.

For the moment, however, I was just busy plotting my next few days. My first objective of course, was to get back to Naruto's apartment. It was going to be touch and go from there, I had to make sure that Sarutobi never found out about me, and I supposed acting like a near-death experience in the woods matured me would probably work.

My second objective would be to get in touch with, and control, my Chakra. After that, I supposed I would just be a ninja. Perhaps leave the village if I didn't like it there. I thought on the meanings of the word 'Ninja' over here, compared to back in my world.

In my world, Ninjas were warriors of the shadow, silent assassins that would kill you before you knew that they were there. There was an expression that I had heard in the past that basically said: "A battle between two ninjas goes as such. First you see an empty field, then a body appears."

In this world, things seemed a little different. I was only going according to what Naruto knew, which definately left a lot of margin for error, but Ninjas in this world seemed to use Chakra to fight on a large scale, perhaps the same scale that superheroes and supervillians would.

When two ninjas in this world fought, there seemed to be a lot of collateral, unless the two ninjas limited themselves to less destructive techniques, in which case there was still collateral damage, seeing as the average ninja could potentially punch through a wall.

And then you get the Kages, the Shadows, the leaders of the villages, like Naruto aspired to be. Naruto's role-model, his _hero_, the person who he aspired to be and to beat, although he didn't do much about it, was not just an average ninja, he was an army-killer. He literally killed every ninja in some-or-other army, during some-or-other war that Naruto never paid attention to in class, _single-handedly_.

I could personally see why Naruto would want to set this guy as his role-model. Never mind the physical resemblance.

'Hey, what is that about anyway? I will have to check this out, but seriously. All the people that Naruto have encountered in his entire _life_, have had dark or some other random color hair, but he has _never_, _**ever**_, encountered someone with the same shade of yellow hair as he had. There were the Yamanaka clan that Naruto had actively looked into that had pale blonde hair, but not nearly the same as his. This Fourth Hokage, however, had _**exactly**_ the same hair as Naruto.'

It may have been a long shot, but I definitely needed to look into it further. Naruto had always disregarded the chance of his role-model being his father as a fantasy, but it might be plausible.

'It can be a little side project of mine, hehe.' I chuckled to myself, considering that I may not have time to have a side project in the near future, I would probably be too busy learning about Chakra, or the History of the Elemental Nations and it's Geography.

I definately didn't want to become a ninja and be unprepared for the job, that would just be stupid. Ninjas killed and got killed on a daily basis! I wasn't going to leave something like that to chance. Heck, I would even learn politics if I had to! Learning how to use my chakra on the other hand was going to be _fun_. As in, bounce up and down, run up the walls kind of _fun_*.

Chakra sounded awesome.

Never mind the fact that I could already think of so many possibilities for an energy that is created by your body. What if it is anything like magic? Or Reiryoku? The possibilities were endless. I just hoped that they hadn't just discarded more possibilities for the energy and used a basic system of easily copied combat, that would suck. Hard.

By this time I must have already been at least half-way to the town, it wasn't really a village even though that was what it was called, and I was grateful for my slight paranoia, as while I didn't jump at shadows I always look behind me while walking alone, and am rather jumpy, which would serve me well in the upcoming years I supposed.

*I am referring to children's tendency to be hyperactive when they are having fun, not the actual wall-walking technique, 'I' technically don't know about that yet.


	6. Chapter 6 - Konoha

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas, Oh My!

Chapter 6: Konoha

2015/11/19

The last stretch of the road passed by in a flash. I was bored of walking by now, and seeing the same trees, over and over and over again was tedious, to say the least. Oh, sure, they were technically not the same trees, and I was definitely not back-tracking, but after seeing one hundred trees they kind of start to blend together, y'know?

"I've already started talking to myself," I sighed, "It usually takes a while longer before I descend into this level of boredom. The silence is actually quite nice, though." The entire forest was quite except for the sounds of nature – the buzzing and crawling of insects, and the chirping and flapping of wings of the birds. I cherished this kind of silence, and I would return here in the future, if only to experience this again. I lapsed back into silence, my voice seeming out of place in the blissful quiet of the forest. There in the distance I could see the trees breaking, the road leading out of the trees.

'Nearly there,' I thought to myself, before picking up the pace slightly. It was nearly midday by now and the sun was beating down from directly above me, and walking for a few hours had tired me out. I just wanted to go lie on a bed for a few minutes, take my shirt off and sleep...

I shook my head and dispelled my current thoughts – I had to actually get there first. I walked out of the forest and suddenly saw the village in front of me; it was much more novel in real life than it was in Naruto's memory. Seeing the memory of a person who sees the same thing over and over ever since birth has a kind of dulling effect compared to seeing it in person, but what can you do?

'And it's happening again,' I sighed once more, 'Let's just get to the apartment.'

I quickly followed the road down to the village, which was rather quaint, and more of a town than a village; if this was a village then I would hate to see what a city is like. But I walked into the road and nobody blinked an eye, in fact, everybody did the opposite. It was as if their eyes just skimmed over me, and when I managed to catch one of their gazes I could see the disgust and hatred that welled up on their faces before they looked away.

'Huh. So that's why his memories seemed so sad. Lonely. He's probably been starved for affection his whole life.' My thoughts were depressing, although more about the fact that he had had such a bad life than the situation that I found myself in. I, personally, couldn't be bothered what people thought about me, and if they wanted to ignore me now, all the better. I preferred my own company to that of normal people, anyway.

I strolled down the street, not a care in the world any more and ignored everyone around me. A few hundred meters of walking later and I arrived at Naruto's apartment, a relatively tall building with his flat technically a penthouse. It sat at the very top of the building, and I walked inside.

It was horrible.

Disgusting.

Horrendous.

It embodied all manner of bad adjectives and offended my senses just by looking at it. There were ramen cups littering the apartment, on the counters , on the table, and even a few on the floor. Miraculously his sink was clean, but that seemed more because he didn't have anything that needed washing than his actual practice of washing it. I walked to his room, carefully avoiding dubious-looking stains on the floor as I went, and opened the door.

It... wasn't as bad, I noticed with a breath of relief. Sure, his bed was unmade and he had clothes everywhere, but there weren't any foodstuffs or cutlery and crockery lying about. I took off my shirt and the jacket from around my waist, and was about to collapse onto the bed before I galvanised myself and did an about face. My perfectionism would not allow me to rest until this apartment was habitable!

I walked back into the main room and began my assault against the evil that is a dirty house. Two years back my brother had been sharing a residence with about ten other college students and I spent a weekend with them... this reminded me of the first day there. The second say was better, but the first day involved me conscripting my brother and his house-mates into cleaning the place with me.

This apartment was a bit worse than that one, but only just and at least there wasn't anything for me to dig out of the sink and wash. I shuddered for a moment, thinking about the sink that was in my brother's kitchen before banishing those horrifying memories and setting to the task at hand.

I looked through the cupboards and pulled out a black bag, opened it, reached to the side, and put the first ramen cup inside it.

AN: Heh. Motivation is a fleeting thing, it seems. Let's see if I can do this again in a few days.


	7. Chapter 7 - Academy Part 1

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 7: Academy Part 1

2015-11-25

By the time the apartment was clean… I still had quite a bit of time left in my day. What did you expect it to take forever? It's only two rooms and a bathroom, there wasn't really that much space to clean. It only took me two and a half hours at most, if that. Granted, I didn't exactly scrub the floors clean with a toothbrush, but I didn't really see the need. There was a perfectly serviceable scrub and mop in the cupboard.

I put all of the cleaning implements back and turned around to see a not-quite-sparkling, but deliciously clean kitchen and main room. The bedroom was clean, the toilet was shining, literally, and I was exhausted, but feeling so much more willing to jump on that bed now.

Unfortunately, I couldn't just tell the rest of the world to go screw itself, so I picked myself off of my _comfortable_, oh so _comfortable_ bed and set out priorities. First, learning about where I was. Naruto's 'knowledge' wasn't much to work off of, and I would have to remedy my lack of the aforementioned resource. Secondly, the house was devoid of food, and I was feeling rather famished at the moment. 'Hmmm… Food sounds good right now…' Generally speaking I would just ignore my hunger until it reached the point that it overcame my laziness, but it seemed that this body was much less willing to conform to my standards than my previous one.

'Sooo… Food!' I thought, before carrying on aloud, "Let's see. I can make… Hmmm… not much really. I suppose eggs would work right now, so would spaghetti bolognaise. And steamed vegetables with steak. Chips could work, too…" I trailed off, wandering into thought.

I actually remembered more about cooking than I expected. It still wasn't much, though. I should get a hold of a cookbook when I get to a library or bookstore.

For now: Meat and vegetables!

Hey, I like vegetables. Sue me.

I grabbed Naruto's slightly comical frog-shaped wallet and headed out, only to be welcomed once more by the blatant ignorance of the villagers.

'Huh. I could get used to this.' I walked towards the nearest store and looked around. Noodles, eggs, milk, meat that was rather expensive compared to the other products, fish that was a lot cheaper, assorted vegetables…

'No pasta? Well, this does seem like a Japanese society, so I suppose that they wouldn't have it.' Moving on, I quickly tallied up the prices. Thankfully Naruto's education extended to basic numbers, necessity for him, I supposed, and I quickly tallied up the price and dumped it on the counter.

"Two hundred and thirty nine ryo." Came the teller's bored statement, and I pulled the notes out of my wallet and paid him. It seemed quite expensive, but that was what I had tallied it up to, so I accepted it and walked back home.

'Food, food, food, food food. Food. Foooooood.' I felt positively zombie-like by the time I had finished making my meal of fried fish and steamed vegetables, with a glass of milk. Somehow Naruto's energy requirements were so much higher than mine that even after finishing a plate of food that would usually have satisfied me completely, I was still hungry. Not famished, but still hungry.

I made some more food.

After two more courses I had finally filled that gap in my stomach, so after washing the dishes and everything that I had used in my endeavour for food, I showered, brushed my teeth and fell asleep just as the sun was going down.

An alarm clock woke me up. That should be enough to describe the pleasure of my awakening. My eyes wanted to snap closed, but I powered through that and switched the clock off, then lied on the bed with my eyes open. 'Now what?' I asked myself. I looked around and, 'Food!' Replied my ever ravenous belly. Dutifully, I slipped on my sandals and stood up to sate the hunger that had developed over the night with a plate of scrambled eggs and more milk.

Nothing beats the nectar of the gods*.

Today I needed to find out more about where I was, so I sat at the table after cleaning my plate and thought deeply about my circumstances. I supposed that the easiest would be to find a library and read up about it, but I didn't know much about how to read Japanese, and unfortunately, neither did Naruto. At that moment, just as I was getting up to go get dressed, pondering how I would go about learning the Japanese script without a teacher and only rudimentary knowledge of the letters, I heard a knock on the door.

"Naruto? Are you inside?" A voice asked, the end of the sentence coming as I opened the door. A face that I had never seen before greeted me, one with a scar across his nose and dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail with a head-band and a plate of metal across the forehead.

Iruka-Sensei. Forehead protector, which I simplified to ninja-band. My mind told me these things, and suddenly reminded me that, "Oh, is it school today?" I asked after a second of staring, before saying, "And, ah, good morning, Iruka-Sensei." It was a rather unenthusiastic greeting, but I was trying to play it off as sheepish.

"Yes, it is. And you're late. Again." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "And good morning to you as well. Get dressed, I'll wait for you."

I shrugged, "Okay," And turned around to go to my room, "You may come in, if you'd like." I told him when I was halfway to my room. I didn't exactly catch the look of surprise on his face at my acceptance, but I could nearly feel it.

Five minutes later I was dressed in Naruto's tracksuit and T-shirt that seemed to dominate his cupboard. I had just shrugged when I saw it for the first time. I had had worse fashion sense when I was his age, so I couldn't really say much. "Okay, I'm ready." I told him as I walked passed him, asking him, "You coming?" When I stood at the door. A second of hesitance later he stood up and strode past me, "Yep. Wouldn't trust you not to run away again, eh?" He teased me, and I saw flashes of hour long chases across Konoha, Naruto laughing all the time, "Hehe," I chuckled weakly, "Yeah…"

I closed the door behind me and locked it, slipping the keys that I had found on the counter into my pocket. Naruto didn't seem to lock his apartment often, but I would. I followed Iruka down the street as he walked, presumably to the school, and the silence seemed to make him uneasy. "So, Naruto, you're rather quiet this morning. Anything wrong?"

"Hm? No, nothing's wrong. I'm just thinking." Apparently my reply was wrong, as his eyebrows rose half-way up his forehead, and he replied, "Thinking, eh? Well, I won't disturb you, then." His lips twitched as he said this, like he was telling a joke that only he knew the punch-line of, and we lapsed back into silence. He didn't bring up school yesterday or the day before, so I assumed that Naruto had decided to wander into the forest on a weekend, instead of during school hours.

Not too long later, I found myself at the doors of the Academy, and the flashes of Naruto's memories carried on, shouting date requests to a pink-haired girl who abused him, playing pranks, getting chased out of class. I had stood still in front of the doors, and Iruka nudged me gently, "Having second thoughts?" He asked with a smirk, and I recovered quickly, smiling up at him.

"Aah, nope, just waiting for you!" I'm pretty sure my smile looked fake, but he didn't comment on it, and just lead me to the class.

I sat down in the first seat next to the exit, causing the blue-haired girl, ('Seriously, what is up with these people's hair colors?'), next to me to blush immensely. Iruka looked at me strangely again, but just shook it off to address the class.

"Well, now that Naruto is here, we can begin." And that was the beginning of a Maths lesson. Which droned on. And on. And on. I tried to pay attention, I really did, but Maths was one of my favourite subjects once upon a time, and I couldn't bear going through Maths that I had done two years ago in school. I just couldn't do it. The lesson rapidly advanced, however, and by the time Iruka was talking about Physics I was paying attention again, slowly taking down notes to pass the time and improve my writing. There was no muscle memory of this in his brain, either, so I had to learn the movements from scratch.

Soon enough, to me at least, a glance at the clock revealed that two hours had passed, Iruka moved on to History. A subject that I sat up slightly for, and began taking notes seriously. The lesson didn't go into all too much detail, but it was about the Second Ninja War, and we focused on the beginning of it. All too soon for me, the bell rang, and we walked out for a break.

AN: Yay... Done. Thanks for the review, jojo061, I'll see what I can do about length, but no promises. It comes and goes.

*I actually refer to milk in that way in real life, so it is quite amusing for me to bring it into Naruto.


	8. Chapter 8 - Avademy Part 2 and Chakra

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 8: Academy Part 2 and Chakra

2015-11-30

Or rather, I should say that everyone else walked out for break, because even with my skill for languages it is always so much easier to learn something with a teacher. Honestly, I had no real need to go out and try to make friends, and I didn't really want to either.

"Iruka-Sensei, can you help me out with a few of these words? I was trying to copy them down, but I didn't understand everything that you wrote on the board." Iruka looked at me in surprise when he heard my question, and it took him a few seconds to formulate a reply, but when he answered it was with a smile and a nod, "Sure! Let's see what you have." His smile quickly dissolved into a frown when he saw my handwriting, and he told me in no uncertain terms that I would be working on it after school, and I agreed easily. His signs of surprise were slowly but surely leaving him, but he still had a few tells. It had only been a few hours, but it seemed that he was getting used to me.

From there onwards he explained the meanings of the various words that I couldn't understand, as well as teaching me a bit of grammar and punctuation as he went. The Japanese language was ridiculously complex, but for some reason the information flowed into me like a sponge, and for a second it hit me like a hammer that children's brains definitely were easier to learn things with. Hopefully I could make the most use of it while it lasted, because by the end of the lesson I was much more certain of the words that I was using and the construction of the sentences that I formulated.

Iruka gave me a few sheets of writing exercises to do at home, and a dictionary to take with. I put them both under my desk and joined Iruka on his way out to the training fields where we would be spending the second half of the day, according to him and Naruto's memories. These parts of the day were much more clear to me than the rest of them, because they were the only parts that Naruto enjoyed. Physical exercise; weapons training, Bukijutsu, it was apparently called in Japanese; and martial arts, which was called Taijutsu. Chakra training and physical training alternated days, with Mondays and Wednesdays being Physical subjects, and Tuesdays and Thursdays being Chakra subjects, while Friday was usually an assessment-slash-review day.

We started the session off with flexibility, and being paired with a partner. I was paired with one 'Uchiha Sasuke', apparently a brooding playboy hated by all boys and beloved by all girls, as well as over half of the village. He also seemed to have a fan-club that began glaring at me after the pairings were chosen.

I ignored them.

Iruka led us through stretches for a while, and eventually we started exercising. There isn't much that children of our age can do safely, but running and push-ups and sit-ups were acceptable, so we did that. We would probably branch out to more strenuous things as time went by and our bodies grew, but for now it was the basics.

Speaking of exercise, Naruto had an absurdly high amount of stamina. I didn't seem exceptionally strong or fast, but minutes after everybody had stopped exercising I was carrying on, still waiting for the burn to hit me. Iruka actually had to interrupt me, telling me that the class had to move on more than a few times, and by the end of the exercises I only felt slightly sore.

Once again the girls glared at me, but I couldn't find it in myself to care, although I noticed that Sasuke and a few of the other boys had joined in by now.

We moved on to Bukijutsu, and this was where Naruto's inexperience showed. I had thrown a few knives in my (admittedly rather short) lifetime, so I knew intellectually how to balance a knife before throwing it, but Sasuke and Iruka were throwing kunai around by the handful! Then came shuriken, and it looked even worse! At the moment we were only actually learning how to throw kunai and shuriken properly, but later we would learn how to attach wires to them and throw multiple kunai at once. I was glad that we were still busy with the basics.

My fingers slipped into a few routines as I went, but after Iruka noticed, he quickly showed me the correct positions to put them in. It was still slow going, and I had to concentrate on returning my fingers to their correct positions a few times, but by the end of the lesson I was at least hitting the target six times out of ten. Unlike the near-total miss streak that I started with.

The taijutsu ended up to be much the same - Iruka showed us something to do, and we would execute the move, whether it was transitioning from one stance to another or simply doing kicks and punches correctly. Naruto's body tried to fall into awkward routines again, but even before Iruka needed to come over I had corrected my posture according to Sasuke's posture and my own experience. I had done both karate and kickboxing for a few years, so I had some knowledge of how to move properly, and when I didn't I simply copied Sasuke. He seemed to know what he was doing, and Iruka never needed to go help him.

Eventually, the school day came to an end, and I asked Iruka if he had anything that I could read in order to catch up on the work that I had missed by playing around in class and skipping. His eyebrows rose nearly into his hairline, but he gave me a few textbooks on things like history, basic ninjutsu and chakra control, bukijutsu and taijutsu guides.

"Thanks, Iruka-Sensei!" I told him as I collected the other materials that he had given me earlier on. "No problem, Naruto." Was that a smile that I caught on his lips as I left?

He didn't even ask me what I did with the previous textbooks.

* * *

I had rushed home after leaving the school grounds and bought a few fruit and some bread from the store on my way. I devoured some of the fruit as well as two sandwiches as soon as I could after getting inside, and leapt at my books. I was slightly less enthusiastic to do the writing homework, but in my previous life I sometimes couldn't even understand my own writing, and I had started taking steps to fix it. Here I could start mostly from scratch, so I filled out each and every page as neatly as possible, copying the symbols line for line, stroke for stroke, curve for curve until my hand ached and my heart cried for mercy, but finally, I had finished.

I picked up the pages, sorted them into a pile neatly and deposited them on a corner of the table, before opening my history textbook at page one. The clock had read that it was 1530 when I got home, and it was 1700 now, so I decided to dedicate another hour to reading up on history before getting food started.

_A Brief history of Konoha and the Hidden Villages_

_By Takashi Mitoku_

_Chapter One:_

_Before the formation of the Hidden Villages as we know them today, there were simply clans. These clans weren't bound to any single location, and were often nomadic, wandering the lands providing their services to the highest bidder. The most notable of these clans were the Senju and the Uchiha…_

I had only just managed to complete chapter one by the time the clock reached 1800, but complete it I did. It was also slightly depressing for me, considering that I could have read a third of a relatively long English novel in the same amount of time, but… baby steps, I supposed. Supper consisted of steamed vegetables, grilled chicken breasts and rice, and I had finished it quickly, cleaning up after myself and returning to my books.

Instead of jumping back into the history book, however, I delved into the book on chakra. This was something that was going to be more fun for me than the history, even though the history of the Hidden Villages read like a fantasy novel to me. Chakra just seemed more interesting to me. It is a literal super-power.

The first thing that appeared was an explanation of the term 'Chakra'. Chakra is the life-force of all living beings, and consists of spiritual energy, derived from your life experiences and knowledge, and physical energy, derived from the accumulated strength of your body. An imbalance of these two energies can often lead to hyperactivity, in the case of more physical energy, or extreme sloth, in the case of more spiritual energy. All people have chakra, but only those who have unlocked it at an early age can consciously use it, although cases of civilians accessing their chakra unconsciously have been recorded.

The entry went on for a bit longer, before explaining how to access your chakra for the first time. Apparently it could be reached through simple meditation, which was what I had managed in the temple, but it was alot easier if you focused it with the ram hand-seal. Before I continued, I quickly paged over to where the hand-seals were, and read the explanation behind them. Hand-seals are basically foci for chakra that allow you to activate your chakra in a certain shape or pattern, making it possible to use ninjutsu through them.

They seemed to act kind of like mnemonics to me, but apparently they had actual power when used in tandem with chakra. On the other hand, I hated the idea behind them. No, 'hated' is too weak of a word. I loathed the idea behind it, I detested it with my entire being. It was exactly the same as wands from Harry Potter, or staffs, or runes, or spellbooks, or any manner of focusing instrument or tool that allowed you to use supernatural abilities that the main character inevitably ends up being useless without. Granted, you couldn't inhibit a person from forming hand-seals without injuring or binding their hands, but why risk that anyway when you can go down the more difficult route of learning things without hand-seals?

For now I would use them, just to get used to them and harness my chakra properly, but in the future I would focus on memorizing the patterns that the ninjutsu used and create them without using hand seals as foci. It would also be so much quicker!

I put a blanket on the floor of the main room, sat down in the lotus position, twisted my hands into the shape of the ram seal and began to concentrate. It truly was easier with the hand-seal, I noted absent-mindedly, the river, no ocean, of yellow energy that flowed up through my hands and circulated around my body. For a brief second I thought that I would drown in how much energy was exploding around me, but then that second was over and my _need _for control reasserted itself. I hated being out of control, I hated not being able to maneuver a situation according to my wishes, and I always imposed my will on everything that could affect me, simply because I refused to have anything except for myself being in control of myself.

I clamped down on the chakra with an iron-hard will, a will that I had forged through numerous… unpleasant situations in my relatively short lifetime. It felt like trying to shape a cube out of water, or a triangle out of sand, but in the case of both of those situations, the solution was rather easy to find, if _slightly_ more complicated to implement: if water cannot be shaped, compress it. If sand cannot be shaped, squeeze it together.

My analogy doesn't really work perfectly, but the end result was me pushing my chakra firmly beneath my skin into an uncomfortably tight ball that pulsed with my heartbeat. From there on I drew tiny slivers of energy out and flowed them along the pathways that they had previously been raging through uninhibited. I channelled thin streams of chakra down all four of my limbs, spiderwebbing like a normal blood-circulatory system, arteries branching out into capillaries, forming back up into veins and rejoining with my 'core', the near-solid mass of energy that I had created in my abdomen. I branched my chakra out into my torso as well, not allowing anything to leak from the hyper-dense sphere of it without my permission, and then finally up to my head. The head was the most tricky part, because it was so much more complicated than the rest of the body, but after an indeterminate amount of time slowly following the paths that my chakra had taken beforehand, I threaded my denser chakra through my brain as well.

As I opened my eyes, I considered this session a success, and as I opened my hands the chakra destabilized instantly, attempting to fall apart and rage throughout my body once more. Now, however, I was much more aware of it, and I mentally clamped down on it in the same way as you would a twitching muscle. I forced my chakra back into the core that I had created and allowed it to flow through my 'chakra circulatory system' as I dubbed it. A few more touch-and-go moments later, I had firm control over my chakra for the moment, and I looked at the clock…

"Zero-Four Hundred. Four O'Clock. In the morning. What." My disbelief was clear in my voice as I muttered it aloud. I would have to wake up in four hours to prepare for school at 0830, so I practically inhaled a banana, before going through my nightly routine of showering, brushing my teeth and going to sleep.

I could survive with four hours of sleep… That didn't mean that it was good for me.

Luckily meditation is also a type of rest, so it wasn't as bad.

AN:

If anybody has any doubts on the difficulty of what the SI/Naruto did, consider that he spent nine hours on it, in order to control something that is already a part of your body, and thus should be at least somewhat instinctual to learn. Also, the control that he has inside his body doesn't really count for all that much outside of it, but right now his control is only slightly below average for his age, as opposed to the abysmal amount of control that he had in the series. Secondly, his spiritual energy and physical energy are slightly more balanced, so that also makes it easier to control.


	9. Chapter 9 - Chakra Troubles

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 9: Chakra Troubles

2015-12-03

"Fuuuuuuck…" The morning came with a long uttered curse, which probably sounded remarkably out of place coming from a nine-year-old's mouth, and the ringing of an alarm clock. I didn't want to force Iruka to come fetch me again, so I rolled out of bed, out on my clothes, and made breakfast before brushing my teeth, grabbing my books and work, and left.

I made quick headway down the street and to the Academy, sitting down in my seat as one of the first children there. I carried on reading on the history of the Hidden Villages from where I left off last time, and learnt a bit more about the Warring Clans period - although I only got through about a quarter of the chapter by the time that all the other students piled in. Iruka seemed surprised that I was actually there, but then smiled and looked over the rest of the class, marking names off of a list.

"Okay class, time for some more History."

And thus began my second school day in another person's body.

Break came around soon enough, and I gave Iruka the pages he had handed me yesterday, completed. "What's this?" He asked, before his eyes widened and realization struck him, "You finished them all?" At my nod, he gaped, "I didn't mean for you to finish them all in one night!" I could see that he really didn't know what to think, so I just put on a bit of a smile, probably looking adorable in the process, and asked him, "Well, how did I do, Iruka-Sensei?"

He sighed slightly, and then looked through the work that I had done. "Not _bad_," He told me, "But not very good either. The last ones look slightly better than the first, but I can only read them because I have experience reading children's handwriting. You'll have to do better." My expression didn't change at all.

I knew that my writing right now was terrible, but I endeavoured to change that, so I asked him for more exercises, and he gave me a large stack of them, telling me to, "Don't do too many at a time. Cramping your hand doesn't do your handwriting any favours, you know?" He smiled down at me, and told me to get ready for after break, so I put my papers down and walked outside. There were still a few minutes left, so I just took a short walk around before sitting down at the training ground outside where we would be practicing chakra control and some incredibly basic ninjutsu, like lighting a fire, or softening hard earth.

Iruka walked out of the doors and the class gathered around. "Pick up a leaf each, everyone, we're going to be practicing the leaf-sticking technique again today." We each did as we were told, with me picking up a rather large oak leaf and waiting for further instructions. Much of the class had already put the leaf to their foreheads and were focusing. Naruto didn't really have much success with this, so I had no idea what to do. Something about pushing your chakra out into the leaf through your forehead?

I glanced around and decided, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess…' I put the leaf against my forehead and concentrated. 'One… Two… Three… Hold… One… Two… Three… Breathe out…' I tapped into the core that I created last night and withdrew a relatively large amount of the near-solid chakra out, directing it to my forehead.

I came to several seconds later, a pounding in my skull and looked around. Everyone was staring at me, the few kids close to me were lying around moaning in pain, and there was a crater in front of me. "Wha… What happened?" I asked, my voice trailing off so that I had to try again.

Iruka rushed over to me and asked me what I did, and already I could see other teachers coming out of their classes waiting for my answer. "I… I did the exercise, I guess?" I looked around confused for a second or two, seeing the hateful glares on the teachers faces, and I knew that they wouldn't like anything that I said. 'Well, fuck you too then.' I thought.

"I pushed my chakra to my forehead into the leaf and… woke up a few seconds later. What happened?" Iruka looked over me in concern, and was about to speak before the Hokage's voice interrupted him, "It seems that you pushed a bit too much chakra into the leaf than you should have, Naruto."

The students and the teachers stood ramrod straight, "Hokage-sama!" He negligently waved a hand, looking at me in concern. I, of course, responded in the only way that Naruto would, "Jiji!" I sat up and waved at him from the floor. "Hehe, how are you, Naruto?"

"I'm doing great, I went into the woods on the weekend, got lost and I realized that I haven't been doing much to be a ninja, so I asked Iruka-Sensei to help me out yesterday, and I was doing better with the kunai and the taijutsu, and then I even read some books and then today…" I allowed myself to trail off of my rambling, the Sandaime's face looking both concerned and proud, elevating my opinion of him slightly. "And then this happened…" I said in a small voice.

I wasn't really acting much, apart from a bit of the 'happy rambling', but I was still shocked about the crater nearby and how remarkably wrong things seemed to have gone.

"Well, we can talk about this in my office. Iruka, come with Naruto and I. Teachers, take the injured students to the hospital. Follow me, Naruto."

'Well, it looked like I would have to explain things sooner than I thought. Let's hope my rambling set him at ease.' We didn't have to walk far, the Hokage's office was just a few stories above the Academy, after all, so Iruka and I followed after Sarutobi quietly.

I knew that this would put him slightly on edge, but I didn't feel like holding up too much of a mask. They get extremely tedious to maintain at all hours of the day, so I was just going to explain away what happened to me.

I sat down in a chair in front of Sarutobi's desk without invitation, while Iruka was clearly waiting for the Sandaime's command. "Sit, sit," he told Iruka, while sitting down himself and pulling out a pipe. "So, what's this I hear about getting lost in the forest?" His question seemed innocent enough, but his eyes were observing me sharply, and I brought up my tale, waiting several seconds before starting.

"Well, on Saturday I went for a little walk, I wanted some fresh air, y'know? So I go walk through the forest and go lie down under a tree, 'cause I was tired and wanted to sleep… So I go to sleep, and the next thing I know, I wake up to this growling sound. At first I thought it was my tummy, 'cause that happens sometimes, but then I look up, and I see it." I took a few seconds as if to compose myself.

The levels of bullshit that I'm spouting right then were rather astronomical, but I forged onwards. "It was big. Like, really, really big. It was long and black with these white spots and it was really hard to see, but one of its feet was as big as my face, and I looked at it and… and I started running. I was running and running and running and after a while I stopped, and I looked around me and I couldn't see anything, but I was tired and…"

I was deliberately making a few mistakes in my rant, but I looked at him as if helpless. "And then I didn't know what to do, so I climbed a tree and waited for the sun, and I thought to myself, 'What if I could have beaten that thing up? What if I paid more attention in class so that I knew what to do and didn't have to run away?' I fell asleep sometime waiting for the sun to come up, but I promised myself to work harder so that that wouldn't happen again and then when I woke up it was light and I wandered around until I found a path again and I went to bed when I got home."

I stopped my tale abruptly, but I could see that Hiruzen was both concerned for me, and believed my story slightly, so he looked at me and hummed. He waited for a few more seconds to see if I would carry on, but I just pulled my legs up onto the chair and waited for him to say something.

"Hmmmmm… I am sorry that you went through that, Naruto. So after that you went to school and asked Iruka here for help and started trying harder?" He looked to Iruka for confirmation, and Iruka nodded, "Yes Hokage-sama, I came to fetch him from home yesterday because he was late, but he paid attention in class the whole day and even did the writing out that I gave him."

"And what happened today then?" He asked Iruka, "Well, today started normally, we did history, but when we started the leaf-sticking exercise, his leaf seemed to glow yellow for a second before it exploded. I didn't see much, I was helping another student, but I saw a yellow glow from the corner of my eye and suddenly he exploded. I would say that he put too much chakra into the leaf, but the amount of chakra that it would take to be able to do that would be enormous!" The Hokage looked pensive at Iruka's reply, and stroked his beard lightly, before asking me, "And you, Naruto? What do you think happened?"

"Well," I replied, "I pushed alot of my chakra out at my head like I was supposed to, 'cause it's supposed to be really hard for kids and stuff, even using the ram seal and all, but then suddenly I was just waking up on my back, a big hole in the ground and everyone around me!"

The Sandiame's face brightened somewhat, seeming relieved and like he had reached a conclusion. He stood up and picked a leaf off of his windowsill, handing it to me. "It seems that you just used a bit too much chakra in your exercise, so do it again. Mabye I can see if you do something wrong this time, eh?" He smiled at me and gestured for me to start. Throughout this conversation with him my opinion of him rose rather dramitically, and he really seemed to have Naruto, and by extension, my best wishes at heart, so I obliged him, but not without a bit of a token struggle.

"Aaah, are you sure Old Man? I wouldn't want to hurt you or something!"

"Maa, maa, it's fine, Naruto, I'm the Hokage, remember? It'll take more than a bit of chakra to put me down." His eyes shone slightly as he said this, his one hand waving and the other hand holding the pipe as he puffed on it.

"Okay… If you say so." I acquiesced, and out the leaf to my forehead, bending my head backwards slightly so that it wouldn't fall off and twisting my hands into the ram seal.

I followed the path to and from my forehead with my mind for a second, before drawing out a considerably smaller amount of energy. Whereas previously I had underestimated the strength of chakra, now I used as little as I could pull without it slipping through my fingers. I guided the chakra up gently, the thick chakra moving slightly slowly at first before becoming more 'fluid' as it went. It still kept the same density, but it became easier to move the longer I held it, so I slowly directed it up to my forehead and out into the leaf, and-

The leaf tore itself apart.

"Well, it seems that you are still using too much chakra, hmm? But it is fine now, as long as you don't use more than that, you shouldn't be able to harm your classmates." He smiled at me a last time before telling Iruka to help me out if I need it and saying that we should go.

The last thing I heard from his office were soft mourning sounds as he reached for his pen.

Iruka looked at a nearby clock and told me that I might as well go home, the school day was over. He also told me not to try fiddling with the leaf-sticking technique when I get home, and I agreed with him completely.

"I won't do it at home, that's just stupid!"

I waved at him as I walked away, dropping my books off at home and eating a quick bite before walking to the forest.

'The forest, on the other hand, is a different story.'


	10. Chapter 10 - Progress

Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 10: Progress

2016-01-02

Controlling chakra is much like manipulating a muscle that you never realised you had before - nearly impossible, but with a lot of effort you could slowly but surely begin to use the newly-discovered muscle. The difference between using a muscle and getting a feel for chakra is that it seemed that chakra, or Naruto's chakra at least, was that an unused muscle never developed the strength to work, which is why it is so hard to use it in the first place. On the other hand, if your muscle is already developed when you discocer it, it is much easier to use, case in point, me looking down at my twitching pectoral muscles, slightly underdeveloped as they were.

I was beginning to suspect that Naruto's chakra was special, as even the smallest controllable amount of the esoteric energy would shred any material that I attempted to push into it. This ultimately led me to realise that his chakra 'muscle' was much more developed than that of a child his age's should be, leading to excerises that should be challenging to a young child being absurdly easy, if not too easy for him to perform.

Slowly but surely, after a few hours of practice and with the darkening sky overhead, I finally managed to not shred the stick that I was using in place of the all-too-fragile leaves that littered the ground. Only jumping up in success made me realise how painful my stomach had grown after hours of neglect, but a quick frown banished that pain to the back of my mind. I looked around myself, taking in with a rather savage glee the splinters littering the forest floor around me, picked up my jacket and shirt, and left.

Around an hour after beginning my practice a vicious idea struck me - if simply pushing chakra into a leaf, stick, or even a stone would shred, burst or shatter it respectively, what would happen to a person?

Most people would abandon that line of thought rather quickly, but I slowly walked up to a tree and 'flexed' my metaphorical 'muscle'. The results were amazing. After a brief urge to indulge in a gleeful cackle of 'SCIENCE!', I carefully took note of what had happened. Upon puching some of my concentrated chakra, which was basically just alot of normal chakra that I had bundled together instead of having to work with the smaller quantities - almost like how people use kilograms and tons in place of grams and milligrams for large quantities - there had been a slight delay before…

Boom.

It shattered from the point of contact as if the chakra had the physical force of rapidly expanding gas, or in other words, a bomb. I theorised that the chakra took a brief few milliseconds to accumulate on the surface of the tree before losing its coherency and rapidly expanding outwards to join nature. The fact that my hand was still producing chakra repelled the chakra that was expanding, forcing it to only expand in the direction of the tree, leading to a large crater, or even simply breaking a small tree completely.

I suppose that ninjas would ordinarily achieve such control over their chakra that the amounts that they used to stick leaves to their foreheads or run up a wall, as Naruto had observed, would be so small that their expansion would leave little to no effects.

Eventually, after much hypothesising and experimentation, I had simply moved on to pushing chakra into a dead stick and slowly reducing the amount that I was using so that it didn't explode. All in all, I was pretty satisfied with the results of my 'training' by the time that I had finished, and now, walking home with a contented little grin, I pondered what to have for supper. There were only a few hours left of the day, so I would have to get my school work done as well.

While eating my meal, I realised that I would have to excercise with Naruto's body as well, if only to prepare for being a ninja. Truthfully, I had doubts about being completely obedient to anybody, but I would see what it was like being a genin before actinv on my suspicion, but… My thoughts were flying all over the place, as usual, and in my head I put together a quick excersising plan for myself: a couple push-ups, a couple sit-ups, a couple squats, a couple calf-raises and a few pull-ups at night, and running to school in the morning. I was only a child right now, and while I disliked the boredom of exercising, I was willing to do it… Just not for hours on end.

After about an hour and a half of studying and writing excerises, I proceeded to begin with some push-ups after stretching. By the time that I had finished with my very small circuit, I felt exactly the same as I did when I started, so I did it again, with the same results. A third time made me notice that it was easier to do the exercises than it was the first time, so, with a confused frown on my face that was gradually rising into a maniacle grin as I realised what was happening, I did the circuit a fourth time, adding a few repetitions to every section.

My grin was positively cheshire by the final pull-up from my doorframe. I had forgotten conpletely about the time by that point, and my stomach's cries for food were similarly forgotten as I ran through a fifth set of excercises, the possibilities endless to my mind.

Somehow, Naruto had a healing factor. I wasn't sure if it was limited to his muscles, or if it was unique to him, or even if it was just a quality of chakra, but as I walked to the kitchen drawer and pulled out a knife, I vowed to find out. The pain of cutting myself wasn't too bad, but what occured afterwards was simply amazing - the small cut along my palm began healing right in front of my eyes, leaving behind naught but a slowly fading scar as the minutes ticked by.

"This is insane." I told myself aloud, "This is insane, and the potential is ground-breaking." My voice was eerily detached when I said that, but being in the kitchen pulled my attention to the rapidly growing pain in my stomach, and I remembered that logically, healing factors required great amounts of food to fuel the process. A quick glance at my clock told me that I should have gone to sleep fifteen minutes prior, so I quickly inhaled some fruit and some meat, before showering and going to bed, this latest discovery keeping a grin on my face even as sleep took me.

The next two days continued much in the same vein - Wednesday we had physical subjects in the second half of the school day, and Thursday we had chakra-related subjects. By Thursday evening I had managed to get a stick to stick to my skin, excuse the pun, although I still shredded a leaf at the barest touch of my chakra. An inspection of my body showed a rapidly improving muscle tone as well, with definition appearing over the course of those two days. I had also started seeing flickers in the corners of my vision, on rooftops and in alleyways, as well as constantly feeling like I was being watched, but I tried to ignore it.

I still looked over my shoulder ever few seconds while in public, and going to the forest was rapidly becoming uncomfortable, but by this point I had decided to approach the Hokage about it. Naruto had a good relationship with him, and and he at least acted like he cared about my well being, so as I prepared to go to the Academy on Friday morning, I made a note to go and visit him in the afternoon.

I also remembered that Fridays were apparently revision days, with the first half being spent going over the theoretical subjects covered in the week, and the second half consisting of sparring. I wasn't excited for it, per se, but I did want to see how well I fared against superpowered child soldiers in training.

AN:

Mabye somewhat rambling, but I was bored and produced this.


	11. Chapter 11 - Sparring

Naruto SI

Current Title: I, Ninja

Chapter 11 - Sparring

2016/11/02

I woke up slowly, blinking away the sleep in my eyes and feeling incredibly rested. Damn, it was great to be this kid.

Many people would be angry, or sad, or even just annoyed at waking up in the body of a prepubescent boy, but waking up in my new body was amazing. I'm not sure what it is, I suspect it has something to do with my healing factor, but waking up leaves me feeling a hell of a lot better than I probably should... As long as I get more than four hours of sleep, that is. A kid needs rest, you know? Waking up itself is generally pretty horrible, but just feeling completely rested is often enough to put a smile of your face in the morning.

Like the one that I was currently wearing as I peacefully worked my way into my clothes. I wasn't in a hurry, I gave myself ample time to prepare the night before, so I wouldn't have to rush in the mornings. Soon I would brush my teeth and then eat some quick breakfast, and be in my Academy seat with about a minute or so to spare.

Planning.

Unfortunately, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, or as I like to call it, everything that isn't me. Case in point, that cart that nearly broke my leg hurtling past me in the road, and those birds that decided that today was a good day to dive-bomb an orange and white child. I still got to the academy on time though. Take that, Murphy.

I dropped a few pages of writing exercises on Iruka's desk as I passed it and sat down, moments before he arrived. Class started with the usual roll call, before continuing into History, Maths, the Sciences of Killing People (not the actual subject name, unfortunately), and everything in between, revising the work done over the week. I'm already starting to get over the whole 'Ninja Academy' thing. Sure, it sounds great and fun on paper, but honestly? I'm going to have to spend the next three years here. If I don't find something to keep myself occupied then I will kill something... I might just do that anyway, considering the profession that I am training for.

I'll have to find a library or something. Mabye the Academy has some more advanced material for go-getters and the like. To be fair, I'm sure that the material is appropriately challenging for a nine year old, and hell, a lot of it is probably much more advanced than what I was doing in fourth grade, but it is, amusingly enough, child's play to me. I almost want to take naps in class. I don't, though. Instead, I spend my time slowly practicing my handwriting, alternating hands whenever one got tired, and wrote down everything that Iruka said. I used to do this when I had nothing to distract me back home as well, it's just a bit more difficult with brushes. And by a bit I mean, wow. That is so much more tedious than using a pen.

For a moment I debate trying some chakra control exercises while I practice, but then I discard it. For now my attention is taxed enough concentrating on Iruka and writing with a brush in an unfamiliar script. I may try it later, sometime in the next few years.

Slowly but surely, Iruka's lesson came to a halt, and everyone shuffled out to recess. I sat away from everyone, as usual, but then a thought struck me. Previously, I had wondered what I would change if I could do school over again with what I knew at the end of it. One of the things that I had thought of was making connections. Being popular and having people respect you changes a hell of a lot about your life in school, and it would change even more if you happened to be in a school for killing people where squads of ninjas are formed. It would be a great investment to make friends now, and have people look up to me, and a hell of a lot easier, than trying to get people to listen to me when push comes to shove.

I like being alone, but I realise the need for allies, if not friends.

That was what was on my mind as I walked over to the group comprised of a fat boy, a boy with tattoos on his cheeks and a third one who looked way too tired to be normal. I get the need to take naps, really, but attempting to sleep on every available surface... That's taking things to a whole new level.

"Hey," Is all I said as I plopped myself down next to them and, then in the short silence that followed, asked, "So... What do you guys do for fun?"

A slightly longer silence followed, and I could have hit myself. Nevermind my natural awkwardness in new conversations, Naruto had already hung out with these kids in the past. Things like that were still kind of iffy for me. Luckily enough being a child is a forgiving time, even to other children, so eventually Chouji opened up and said, "Well, I like chips. And beef, and chicken! Cooking is fun, too, but I don't get to do it often."

Not to be outdone, Kiba butted in, "I like playing Ninja and fighting!"

"Well, that's fun too, I guess..." Chouji didn't seem entirely convinced of his own statement, so I voiced my own opinion.

"Well yeah, it's fun, but it can get a bit tiresome sometimes. What about you, Shikamaru?"

The kid looked incredibly grumpy at being directly addressed, but responded anyway, "I prefer watching the clouds. And napping. Running around is really, uh..." He frowned for a moment as if trying to recall something on the tip of his tongue, "Troublesome."

We chatted for some time longer about the most inane of things, when the bell finally rang, "Sparring time!" Kiba announced with a grin on his face, "Try to keep up this time, Naruto!"

Oh. It seemed that Naruto had lost a fight to him a few weeks back when they were paired together. No matter. I'd see how well I did against my opponent and gauge the average level of strength and skill from the rest of the fights.

"We'll see, Kiba. We'll see." Then he was off, wanting to be the first one there I guess. "Time to go, then." I got up and waited for the other two before walking there together.

"Alright, the usual drill," Iruka's voice carried and everyone quieted down as they heard him speak. "Do your stretches and wait for your name to be called. No biting or scratching, no permanent damage. I'll give you five minutes to stretch."

I found a little spot off to the side and observed the others while stretching myself. It's really surprising how limber young bodies are. The girls were obviously slightly more flexible than the boys, but everyone was going through some effort to loosen themselves up a bit for the upcoming matches. I really wasn't expecting much from a group of nine year olds fighting.

Soon enough, Iruka called out the first pair, "Juuto Ichiba and Chaizo Yu."

They were... Children. Yes, I could see technique there, but honestly, it looked exactly the same as any other children who practiced martial arts, and not even to such a great level, either. Ichiba launched a punch at Yu, breathing out sharply to punctuate the punch, throwing his weight into it and mostly keeping his form in place.

That was a decent punch from Ichiba, great form, but it was still just a nine year old throwing it. I was too now though, so I really had no room to judge.

The punch caught Yu just before he could block it and he stumbled slightly, but retaliated with a front kick. Ichiba dodged it with a centimetre to spare, but Yu tilted his body and turned his grounded foot, snapping his leg outwards in a roundhouse kick without setting it down. It was a pretty brilliant manoeuvre for a nine year old, many adults wouldn't be able to handle their balance like that... Without training, of course. Either way, the kick caught Ichiba off guard and he stumbled back a bit, grunting in pain.

The fight continued in that vein for a while longer, Ichiba winning out eventually and a few more match ups were called. Girls were paired with girls and boys with boys, before finally, my name was called.

"Naruto Uzumaki and Shinichi Ryokan."

I nodded at Iruka with a smile as I stepped past him into the ring and observed my opponent. An average sized boy, not fat or even chubby, but not exactly toned, either. As he got into position in front of me, I noted the familiarity and ease with which he sunk into his stance, and I notched his skill level at slightly above the previous best person that I had seen fighting, a girl whose family name was Daizuki. She had been much better than her opponent, ending the fight with a kick to the knee and a punch to the eye.

I settled my feet into a general stance, left foot a tiny bit more than shoulder width in front of my right one, hands open and raised to about chest height. As soon as we were both ready, Iruka announced it.

"Begin."

I nodded at Shinichi and observed him. He nodded back, then tensed, and I quickly stepped backwards and slapped his arm away as he tried to hit me with a jab to the face, but he just followed up with another jab and then a kick to the leg. I brushed the jab aside with my right arm, then stepped into his kick and punched at his ribs with my left hand while he was on one leg. He got his leg down in time and hopped back, my first grazing his ribs as he pulled away, but I didn't let the opportunity slip.

From what I saw earlier, the others liked to keep at least arms length away from each other at all times, probably a training mechanism to get them used to disengaging and using a jutsu. Instead, I went and did the opposite.

As he stepped forward so did I, getting back into his guard and driving my right first forward to his ribs again. This time he was prepared and managed to block it, so I stepped even closer and grabbed onto his other arm, turning, bringing my off hand back to grab it as well, and flung him onto the floor! His face was filled with an impossibly shocked surprise as his back hit the ground, and I looked at Iruka for the briefest of moments.

His face told me that the fight was still on.

Shinichi shook his head from where he was lying as I stepped closer, trying to get his head to stop spinning, most likely, but I had a fight to win. I balled my hand into a fist and said, "Sorry."

I drove it into his face.

He didn't try to get up again.

"Naruto wins!"

'Thanks, Iruka.' I thought, 'Master of the obvious, and all that.' Still, I was greatful for the small smile that he had on his face as he looked at me.

Shikamaru, Kiba and Chouji all congratulated me as I walked back to where they were sitting, and I watched the rest of the fights in silence.

Kiba won his, no surprise there, attacking with a viciousness that I could parallel to a wild animal, getting his opponent down as quickly as possible.

Chouji, on the other hand, was seemingly content to let his opponent approach him and waited a bit before clobbering him in the side. He didn't get back up.

Shikamaru... didn't even try. He let his opponent hit him with a weak jab to the ribs, then forfeited. Honestly, that kid. It wasn't the first time either, according to the exasperated frown on Iruka's face.

The last fight was between two girls named Hinata Hyuuga and Ino Yamanaka. Ino seemed to have very little actual skill, while Hinata was so timid that she didn't even throw a single punch or kick! The fight eventually went to Ino out of the simple fact that Hinata wouldn't attack. The sad part was that Hinata seemed extremely used to her stance and fighting style - everything was textbook perfect... She just didn't even try to attack.

"Hmmm..."

"Huh? You say something, Naruto?" Kiba picked up on my hum a second late.

"Oh, no, just thinking about something."

The Hyuuga clan was a big deal in Konoha, so it would make sense that she would be so skilled, especially in taijutsu, but why was she so timid?

I was going to find out... After I looked around for a library or something later. I didn't know too much about the Hyuuga clan anyway. Best to read up on it before approaching her - just in case.

Hey everyone. This took ages to get started on, but yeah, I was bored so here's this. I'm thinking about putting this over onto Space battles and Sufficient Velocity, but I'll edit the notice in on the latest chapter if I do decide to do so.


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